As Christmas approaches, I find myself reflecting upon the event known throughout history as “The Bombardment of Wrangell.” On Christmas Day 1869, the U.S. Army invited Tlingit people from neighboring Khaachxhan.áak’w to attend a day-long, drunken party inside the walls of the newly constructed Fort Wrangel. As the party went late, a Tlingit man bit off the finger of a white woman, for which he was shot and killed. This led to two days of cannon-fire upon the village by U.S. Army, and ended with the court-martial and hanging of Tlingit leader Scutdoo. This story was one of my first episodes, The Christmas Bombardment, and I still think about it nearly every day.

No one is more responsible for the bombardment than the man in command: U.S. Army 1st Lieutenant William Borrowe. It was his decision to break Army regulation by serving alcohol to the Tlingit at a late-night party. Lieutenant Borrowe issued the ultimatums, ordered the cannons fired, took hostages, and oversaw the court-martial and execution of Scutdoo. As the head of the Army in Fort Wrangel, William Borrowe’s written report of the event has been repeated and retold for centuries.

There’s no photo of William Borrowe, but the Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography describes him as “5 feet, 11 inches tall with a florid complexion, brown eyes and auburn hair.” He was born in New York and joined the Union at the outset of the U.S. Civil War. In a foreshadowing of his time in Fort Wrangell, Lieutenant Borrowe led teams of heavy artillery on the battlefield.

William Borrowe In the Army

Here’s a brief timeline of William Borrowe’s life before arriving in Alaska:

1861: As the U.S. Civil War between the North and the South kicked off, President Abraham Lincoln asks for volunteers to serve in the Continental Army. William Borrowe, a 25 year-old New York City stock broker, answers the call, and enters service on November 15, 1861 as a 2nd Lieutenant.

1863: William Borrowe is promoted to 1st Lieutenant. As a member of the 2nd Artillery, Borrowe is in charge of the Army’s biggest guns on the battlefield. He is commended by his superior officers for his ability to lead men in battle, including the single bloodiest day of the war, the Battle of Antietam.

1864: William Borrowe is court-martialed for multiple abuses of official power, fraud, forgery, and other crimes (see “Civil War Court-Martial” below).

1865: Following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, William Borrowe is restored to Army service by President Andrew Johnson.

1866: Lieutenant William Borrowe and his family are sent to Oregon. He becomes instrumental in the Army’s administration of the “Snake War,” a conflict with Indigenous peoples reaching into what is today Oregon, Idaho, California, and Nevada. Lieutenant Borrowe’s deputy, Dr. William McKay, oversees a wintertime program of hunting Indigenous men, women, children and collecting their scalps. McKay wrote in his journal:

1867: Borrowe and his family are transferred to Camp Steele in the San Juan Islands. Mary Julia Tyson Allen, the wife of a major, writes about Borrowe to her sister:

1868: William Borrowe and his company are sent to Sitka, Alaska, and shortly after arrive in Fort Wrangel, Alaska.

Civil War Court-Martial

I recently paid for a copy of Lieutenant William Borrowe’s personnel file from the National Archives, and it is shocking. According to the Army’s charges, Borrowe committed numerous abuses of power:

• June 26, 1863: After one (1) horse died, and one (1) wandered off, William Borrowe recorded in the books that the Army lost three (3) horse. The horse that went missing was not reported in a timely fashion, either.

• July 20, 1863: Borrowe ordered Private Redmond Norton to shoot and kill a horse, but the horse did not belong to the Army, Borrowe, or any known person. Borrowe then fooled 1st Lt. E.H. Nevins Jr. into certifying the horse’s death for the Army. Borrowe deducted one (1) horse from the Army’s property, writing “one horse with glanders shot.”

• September 1, 1863: Sold one (1) of the Army’s horses to 1st Lt. Theodore M. Finley for $126, and failed to provide the promised receipt from the Quartermaster.

  September 1, 1863: Sold one (1) of the Army's horses to 2nd Lt. August J.B. Baumstarck for an undisclosed amount. Borrowe would later buy the horse back from Baumstarck and sell it to an undisclosed party in New York City for $160.

  March 1, 1864: Mysteriously deducted 4 horses from the books.

  March 31, 1864: Borrowe wanted a horse carriage for his own personal property, and used his power and position to get it. To get a set of harnesses for his carriage, he stole a set from an ambulance carriage owned by the Army, and replaced them with a set of old, condemned harnesses he asked the battery’s saddler to fix up. Borrowe traded the Army’s stolen harnesses for a set of “fancy” harnesses.

• April 30, 1864: William Borrowe backdated a $11.65 charge in the books to Private James Baum. Private Baum was away being court-martialed and unable to defend himself.

  May 1, 1864: With his harnesses in hand from his previous scheme, William Borrowe ordered the men in his battery to set aside their official duties, and devote themselves to building a private carriage for his enjoyment with supplies he provided. Their labor built the carriage, but only Borrowe and his friends could use it.

• June 15, 1864: William Borrowe rode around in his personal carriage, built by Army soldiers and pulled by the Army’s horses using illegally acquired harnesses. When Borrowe encountered Captain Rollin C. Gale, he lied, saying he paid $142 for each of the horses. Borrowe then attempted to sell Gale the whole thing (carriage, harnesses, and horses) for $1,200.

• July 8, 1864: William Borrowe was given 4 days leave, but he took nearly a week off.

For these offenses, Lieutenant Borrowe was charged in the fall of 1864 with Defrauding the United States, Forgery, Knowingly Making False Muster of Men, Conduct Prejudicial to Good Order and Military Discipline, Wrongfully and Knowingly Selling Property of the United States, Furnished for Military Service of the United States, Conduct Unbecoming an Officer and a Gentleman, and Absence Without Leave.

Lieutenant Borrowe’s fellow officers served as “the Court” for a court-martial trial. While these charges were serious enough to have him drummed out of the service, his peers found him Not Guilty on nearly all accounts and fined him only two months pay with a reprimand. Brigadier General J.P. Slough flatly rejected the jury’s conclusion and began to investigate. He wrote:

The Court to my personal knowledge, drank at four different times with the accused. All the members being present the first time, and different members of the Court at other times. At the first time, the liquor was ordered from the proprietor of the saloon by Capt. Borrowe, and at another time, the invitation to drink was given by him. It has been the custom, after the adjournments, and during the recesses of the Court, for the members to go out and drink, the accused being generally one of the party; and during the intermissions and adjournments, the accused and his counsel were in frequent private communication with different members of the Court,-thereby influencing their minds unduly, and attempting by the use of Lager-Beer and outside influences to counteract the effect of legitimate testimony.

One man was absolutely not putting up with William Borrowe. When President Abraham Lincoln heard about the charges against William Borrowe and the conduct of his court-martial, he personally intervened to have Borrowe removed from office. Borrowe wrote to Lincoln, pleading “that redress be granted to me.” Instead, President Lincoln wrote tersely, “I decline to make any further order in this case.”

On March 8, 1865, just weeks before the South surrendered, William Borrowe was kicked out of the U.S. Army. But events would turn in Borrowe’s favor, as President Lincoln was assassinated shortly after the South’s surrender. The new president, Andrew Johnson, did not take such personal offense to Borrowe’s crimes, and reinstated Borrowe into the Army.

Several years later, following the bombardment of Khaachxhan.áak’w, the U.S. Army once again tried to get William Borrowe kicked out of the service. On November 3, 1870, the Captain of the 11th Infantry wrote to Brigadier General E.D. Townsend:

Sir: I have the honor to inform you that 1st Lieutenant Wm. Borrowe 2nd Artillery has been reported to the Board… as unfit for the proper discharge of his duties, from other causes than injuries incurred or disease contracted in the line of his duties.

At the beginning of January 1871, the U.S. Army finally kicked out William Borrowe for good.

A life of Fraud

Unceremoniously returned to civilian life, William Borrowe and his family moved to California, where he became implicated in embezzlement, fraud, and cases of official abuse of power. He is responsible for one of my favorite headlines of all time, in the September 9, 1901 San Francisco Examiner: “Borrowe’s Borrow Ends In Sorrow.” It was a fitting description of a man who left a wake-trail of devastation wherever he went.

In 1908, William Borrowe passed away at the age of 73 in San Francisco

If you enjoyed this article, please check out The Christmas Bombardment, our 2020 episode about the bombardment of Khaachxhan.áak’w. If you have information about Lieutenant William Borrowe or any piece of the story, please get in touch!